Our take

Editorials

Russ Solomon, like his Tower Records, knew the real art was in human contact. Connecting was what Solomon did – with his times, with musicians, with his customers, with the lenders who, despite ups and downs, continued to loan him money. With the many employees who loved him. With the rivals who copied him. With the city that honors him today. Read more.

Sign Up and Save

California would be a casualty of Trump’s trade war. Exports are a big part of California’s economy. So if the president starts a trade war, it will cost jobs, raise prices for consumers and set back California’s economy. Read more.

Dan Walters, CALMatters: So far, electing a new governor of California has resembled a game of musical chairs more than a horse race. Every fortnight, it seems, brings the announcement of a new candidate and/or a new opt-out, and every change in the lineup alters the odds of who will survive June's top-two primary and win the right to duke it out in November. Read more.

Op-eds

Mary Butler: Sacramento has a chance to be smart on crime. On Tuesday, the Sacramento City Council considers a permit to allow a day reporting center for federal probationers to open on Franklin Boulevard. Read more.

Take on voting

Sacramento County is the big test of a new voting system that California is trying, hoping to make elections smoother for voters and officials alike. A public open house Monday of the new equipment gave more confidence it will turn out well.

The new touch-screen voting tablets are easy to use. They print a voter’s official ballot, but don’t count or record votes and aren’t connected to the internet in any way. So they should be safe from hacking, Russian or otherwise.

Because voters can go to any vote center, there will be far fewer provisional ballots – those cast at the wrong precinct. But there could still be a bottleneck that slows down the vote count – mail ballots that are turned in on Election Day, because each signature must be individually verified.

The process for judging disputed ballots should also be faster, and just as importantly, more transparent, thanks to new digital displays that election office staff will use and that campaign observers can see.

Jill LaVine, the longtime Sacramento registrar of voters, is retiring at the end of the month, so won’t be around for the June 5 primary. But she says her staff has been prepping for months, and she’s confident they’re ready. Just in case, Dominion Voting, the vendor of the new equipment, will have a team on site for Election Day. Good thing, because this too important a test to flunk.

Their take

East Bay Times: Bay Area Rep. Mark DeSaulnier should have been present for Wednesday’s televised meeting on gun violence at the White House. The Concord Democrat would have put ending Congress’ 22-year ban on gun violence research front and center in the discussion, where it belongs. Read more.

Los Angeles Times: The Trump administration has shown that it’s willing – eager, actually – to go to great lengths to limit illegal immigration into the United States, from building a multi-billion-dollar border wall with Mexico to escalated roundups that grab those living here without permission even if they have no criminal record. Now the administration’s cold-hearted approach to enforcement has crossed the line into abject inhumanity: the forced separation of children from parents as they fight for legal permission to remain in the country. Read more.

Orange County Register: Southland cops who have played a big part in lessening the threat of criminal gangs over the last two decades are shaking their heads – once again – over remarks by President Trump. The detectives and street officers who have made former gang strongholds safe for the citizenry say they’re puzzled about the recent comments the president made just as he plans his first trip to California since taking office. Read more.

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: During an emotional seven-hour public meeting on Tuesday about the shortcomings of the county’s emergency response system, Sonoma County supervisors made clear their dissatisfaction with the performance of those responsible for making sure the county is ready for a crisis. Read more.

Philadelphia Inquirer: President Donald Trump sounds interested – for now – in solving at least some of this country’s gun problems in the wake of the mass shooting that left 17 students and educators dead in a Florida high school. But the president has also seemed confused and misinformed about why previous efforts at gun regulation have failed. He has a top-notch research agency that can study the problem in detail, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs governmental permission. Read more.

Syndicates’ take

Jared Bernstein and Dean Baker, Washington Post: It is clearly insufficient to yell “higher prices!” or even “trade war!” and call it a day. Critics of the tariffs need to tell us what they think better, more inclusive trade policy looks like. Read more.

Charles M. Blow, New York Times: For President Trump, chaos is the perpetual result of the absolute incompetence and idiocy of a preening philistine who has faked his way through life pretending that he knows more than he does and is tougher than he is. Read more.

Michael Gerson, Washington Post: President Trump approaches governing like a spectator, often acting as if someone else is really in charge. He seems most comfortable commenting from the sidelines, like an old Fox viewer yelling at the television. Read more.

Paul Krugman, New York Times: President Trump has always had a thing about trade, which he sees the way he sees everything: as a test of power and masculinity. It’s all about who sells more. This is, of course, nonsense. Trade isn’t a zero-sum game: it raises the productivity and wealth of the world economy. Read more.

David Leonhardt, New York Times: No other affluent country subjects its teenagers to the risk of violence – or early death – that the United States does, and guns are one of the two big reasons. The top cause, by a large margin, was motor vehicle crashes. Read more.

Andres Oppenheimer, Miami Herald: Uber and Lyft, the private ride-hailing platforms, are already experimenting with driverless taxi services in several U.S. cities. What will happen with the more than 350,000 taxi drivers? Read more.

Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: This deeply aberrant presidency threatens to cost the nation much more than even some of Donald Trump’s harshest critics may realize. Read more.

Tweets of the day

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We’ve lost a Sacamento and National icon. Russ Solomon’s contributions to our community will last another 92 years &amp; more. We mourn his loss &amp; our thoughts are with his wife Patti and their family.<br><br>Founder of Tower Records dies at 92 <a href="https://t.co/PGwi07TnB4">https://t.co/PGwi07TnB4</a></p>&mdash; Darrell Steinberg (@Mayor_Steinberg) <a href="https://twitter.com/Mayor_Steinberg/status/970750308493209600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 5, 2018</a></blockquote>